IMD

IMD is very unique in many ways. The small number of students: 90, their vast work experience: average 7 years. The international student body: 45 different nationalities. The emphasis on leadership: leadership stream throughout the program with a personal psycho analyst.

It could be extended from 11 months to 11.5 or 12 months to allow a day or two per months without scheduled classes - the intensity of the program would go down a slight bit and allow to catch you breath or catch up from time to time.

The most unique aspect of IMD is the small and diverse class. The class has only 90 participants which in my year came from 45 different nationalities. What is also unique about IMD is the intensity of the program. Being a 1 year program that includes roughly the same number of lecture hours as a two year program plus a huge team workload on top, it really pushes you beyond what you thought possible.

Electives were limited in choice, some additional partnerships with other institutions abroad could also help lift the image to those areas where IMD is still not known enough.

The class size and diversity makes it truly unique combined with the Leadership stream.

Although the school size is a handicap on attracting companies (class size of only 90 people),even more career services work on bringing a higher number of large companies to recruit students would be a nice to have.

The leadership stream is a unique personal development program that is woven into the curriculum in every aspect. The learning through interpersonal interactions and teamwork can only be acquired through experience, never taught.

I think the program would be stronger if there were fewer career service lectures at early stages of the year and more later on. The early CS lectures come at a time when students are already overworked. Also in our year there were some teething issues with a new Ipad system for documentation. Hopefully these are fixed now.

Because of the relatively high average age of the IMD MBAs, candidates bring a lot more work and life experience than students at other MBA programs. This enables rich and challenging discussions.